AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 113 



ROSEATE SPOONBILL 



A. O. U. No. 183. (Ajaja ajaja.) 



RANGE. 



Tropical America extending north to the Gulf States chiefly in 

 Florida. 



NEST AND EGGS. 



These- beautiful birds nest in the most impenetrable of swamps plac- 

 ing their frail platforms of sticks in bushes and from four to fifteen 

 feet from the ground. They lay, during May, three or four eggs with 

 a pale greenish blue ground color, spotted and blotched with brown of 

 varying shades. In the United States the only locality where they 

 nest in any numbers is in the Everglades of Florida. 



HABITS 



By Ike Shaw, Fla. 

 Perhaps some of the readers of American Ornithology may be inter- 

 ested in a brief description of a trip which we took in the "Everglades" 

 in search of the "Pink Beauties." Procuring a seven ton schooner, with 

 a cook and two guides we started out early one morning from Myers 

 and after two days uneventful sailing reached a point within five miles 

 of where our guides asserted we would find the objects of our search. 

 We came to anchor in the lee of a small island, and from this point, the 

 water being shoal, proceeded in a small sailboat. After having stock- 

 ed the boat with provisions for a two days journey, we started out 

 weaving our way cautiously through the many islands, uninhabited ex- 

 cept for the birds, until we came to a barrier in the shape of an almost 

 impenetrable marsh. Leaving our boat here we started out on foot 

 through mud, vines, cacti and tall saw grass until at last we came to a 

 place where our dusky guide said, pointing with his naked arm : 

 'There, surr! I reckon they sure ought to be around yonder marsh." 

 We tramped about through the worst tangles of underbrush that I have 



